She’s everything a big bad wolf could want.
Halle Pumas, book 4
Coping with a devastating injury is hard enough for Belinda “Belle” Campbell. Forced separation from her destined mate while she heals is almost more than she can endure. Until she is strong enough to take up her duties as Luna of the Poconos Wolf Pack, however, the safest place for her is Halle. Now, after months of being alone, she is more than ready to be claimed. But is the pack ready for a Puma Luna?
Rick Lowell has waited long enough to bring Belle home where she belongs. He’s aware of the danger, as well—and it isn’t long before a bitch with an eye on Belle’s position issues a challenge. The only way to put down the threat is for Belle to defeat the usurper in combat.
There’s only one problem. Thanks to the pins in her broken hip, Belle can’t shift. Without that tactical advantage, it won’t be a fair fight. With his new mate’s life on the line, Rick is forced to make a decision that will change everything.
That is, if Belle gives him the chance to make it.
Warning: This title contains explicit sex, graphic language, lots of doggie (or is that kitty?) style and some songs Rick will never want to hear again. Ever.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
Steel Beauty
Copyright © 2009 by Dana Marie Bell
ISBN: 978-1-60504-498-9
Edited by Angela James
Cover by Natalie Winters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: April 2009
www.samhainpublishing.com
Steel Beauty
Dana Marie Bell
Dedication
To Mom, who thinks, even after seventeen years, that Dusty and I are nauseatingly sweet together. It’s not like we make goo-goo eyes at each other just to watch her gag or anything. We aren’t that devious. Really. No matter how funny it is.
To Dad, who will probably start calling on Dusty again to fix his Diablo II game now that his live-in tech support is heading off to college. Remember, don’t let my sister touch it lest you have to restart your level 60 paladin again. How many times would that make, anyway?
To Memom, who tells my mother to stop gagging every time Dusty and I make goo-goo eyes at each other. She thinks it just encourages us.
To my brother, for helping me think up ways to torture Rick at a certain Pack meeting.
To Dusty, who has decided that since I’ve named his laptop “Bertha, aka the Other Woman”, my laptop needs a name. Last I heard he was muttering “Sven, maybe?”
And to Crystal Dee, who came up with the name Steel Beauty. May I say you rock?
Prologue
November
“No fucking way.” Rick stared at Max Cannon, the Halle Puma Alpha, and wondered what his head would look like rolling down the driveway. “My mate goes home with me.”
“How are the Wolves going to react to an injured, non-Wolf Luna? Think, Rick! Not only is she injured, she’s Puma. And until you can fully claim her, she’s Pride. My Pride.” Rick watched Max cross his arms over his chest. He wanted to rip them off and beat him over the head with them.
He’d had a thoroughly rotten day. He’d been shot, killed a rogue, found his mate, found out his mate was hurt, and now had to deal with a territorial cat intent on sending him on his way. “She comes home with me.”
Max sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Look, Rick, I know how I would feel if this were Emma.”
Rick nodded shortly. The big cat would understand, somewhat.
“But, and this is a big but, Belinda hasn’t had the easiest time of it in the last couple of weeks. You’re new to your position, as well. You need to solidify your Pack and prepare them for what they’re going to have to deal with when Belinda gets there. You’ll also have to prepare Belinda.”
“Belle.”
Rick looked at the pale mate of the Puma Marshall, Sheri Montgomery, the one who’d been the cause of Rick coming down to Halle in the first place. “Belle?” Who was this Belle, and what did she have to do with Belinda?
Sheri shot a look at Simon, who winced. Rick’s eyes narrowed at the guilty flush on the Beta’s face and wondered what the man was hiding. Sheri turned back to Rick with a grimace. “Belinda is who she was when she was friends with Livia, the mask she wore to fit into Livia’s social set. Belle is who she really is.”
Simon nodded. “And that’s something else that needs to be dealt with.”
Rick sighed and sunk down onto Max’s leather sofa. The Alpha had dragged him, literally, out of Adrian’s house, shoved him in his Durango, and carried him off. It hadn’t taken long for the rest of the Pride’s inner core to show up. Only the fact that his own Marshall hadn’t been worried for him had kept him from biting some cat ass. “You are going to explain all of this shit, right?”
Emma spoke up. “I’ll try. Okay, roughly a month ago Max marked me as his and claimed me as his Curana.” Rick nodded. Curana was Puma equivalent of Luna, the Alpha female of a Pack, or in Emma’s case, a Pride. “He gave me the Curana’s ring, and I wore it to the annual Halle masquerade. When Livia realized Max had mated me, she freaked out. She attacked Becky, Simon’s mate, while Becky was still human.”
Ouch. That explained why the woman had been Outcast. An unprovoked attack on a human? This Livia person was lucky Max or Simon hadn’t ripped her throat out. That’s what Rick would have done. “What does this have to do with Belle?”
Emma shrugged. “Belle and Livia were best friends, and it was well known Belle wanted to mate with Simon.”
Rick stiffened. Mate with Simon? Now he understood some of why the Beta had looked guilty.
Emma continued the story, leaning against Max with a sigh. “Because Livia attacked Becky, and Belinda wasn’t anywhere near the party at the time it happened, most of the Pride assumed she’d helped Livia in some way or another. Hell, even we assumed it at first.”
Rick clenched his jaw against his immediate response. He didn’t know Belle well enough to know if she was capable of such a thing, despite every single one of his instincts screaming that she wasn’t. “What happened next?”
“Livia was Outcast, and Belle…”
Emma looked up at Max, but it was Simon who answered. “Belle proved herself to us. She helped save Becky when Becky collapsed at work, and she sacrificed herself to save Sheri from a psychotic stalker.” Simon shook his head. “I never thought Belle had it in her to do that, but she proved me wrong.”
“She proved all of us wrong.” Max snuggled Emma close, a frown on his face. “But we’ve had a difficult time getting the rest of the Pride to see that, despite everything she’s done. In essence, they’ve shunned her. She’s lost her job, almost lost her apartment, and even with her injury we had a hard time getting volunteers to protect her when she needed it.”
Rick bit back a growl. The danger was past, and they had figured out how to protect his mate in the end. But the fallout on Belle had been, in Rick’s mind, totally unwarranted. Just
because her ex-best friend had been a psychotic bitch didn’t mean Belle should be held responsible for the other woman’s actions. He couldn’t wait to get her away from the self-righteous assholes who were making her life a misery.
He stood, ready to walk out Max’s front door, put his female in his car, and take off for home.
“Rick.” Becky stood, ignoring Simon’s outstretched hand. “I’m probably one of the last people Belinda would expect to stand up for her right now, but I have to say, she’s had a horrible time of it. Don’t make it worse for her.”
Max blocked his path to the front door. “Are there any doctors up by you who can handle an injured shifter? Any who can deal with the physical therapy she’s going to need?”
Rick growled.
Max, the smug bastard, smiled. “Are you willing to move down here for the next few months? No? Then go home. Let her heal. Then, when she’s ready, come and take her.”
“Take her home.”
“What?” Max turned to his little dark-haired mate.
“Take her home. You said take her.”
Max gave her a puzzled frown. “Well, that too.”
Rick snorted, amused for the first time that day, as Emma rolled her eyes at Max.
Max put his hand on Rick’s shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “I give you my word that no harm will come to your mate while she is under my protection.”
The formal vow, accompanied by a flash of Max’s power, reassured him. Looking around, he saw the determination on the faces of the rulers of the Halle Pride, and knew he’d lost this round.
He accepted Max’s oath, and the separation that would accompany his decision, with a great deal of reluctance.
But there was no way in hell he was going to stay completely out of his mate’s life for the next few months. He might not have her by his side, but he’d be damned if he didn’t have some piece of her.
December
Belle picked up the little hand-held computer Rick had sent her and smiled. She’d only been out of the hospital for a little over a month, but he text-messaged or called every single day without fail. He’d even set up the chat program for her. She’d laughed when she saw the handles he’d given them both.
BgBdWlf837: How’s my Luna today?
She started typing on the miniscule keyboard. The concentration helped with the pain, sometimes.
BellaLuna1345: So-so. Therapy was a bitch. No pun intended. I think my therapist was trained personally by the Marquis de Sade in a previous life. You?
BgBdWlf837: Work work work.
Something he very rarely discussed. One of these days she was going to nail his ass down and find out what he did for a living.
BgBdWlf837: You get my Christmas present?
She smiled as she thought of the present he’d sent. A beautiful aqua silk scarf, a pair of diamond earrings, and a thin gold chain had been in the exquisitely wrapped present. Knowing men the way she did, she wondered who he had buy the gifts, or if he’d actually bought them himself.
BellaLuna1345: Yes. Beautiful. Thanks. You get mine?
She’d sent him a watch. On the face was a howling wolf. She’d had it custom made by a friend of hers, who’d done the work for cost or she’d never have been able to afford it.
BgBdWlf837: Yes! Love it! Wearing it now.
That made her grin, even if he was lying through his teeth.
BgBdWlf837: Let me know if I need to come down there and rip the gonads off your PT, k? And keep that pussy Beta away from you.
Belle rolled her eyes. He had a real thing against Simon. She wondered who’d told him about her past relationship with the Pride’s Beta.
BellaLuna1345: Down, boy. Sit. Good dog. Goooood dog.
BgBdWlf837: ROFL
BgBdWlf837: Merry Christmas, my Luna.
She couldn’t help the big smile. Just seeing his name brightened her day in a way she couldn’t explain. Those times when they actually spoke on the phone were the best, though. Then she could hear that deep, rough voice soothing the aches and pains of not just her injury, but her near-shunning.
BellaLuna1345: Merry Christmas, Fido.
Not that she would let him know that, off course.
He might be her mate, but she could still play hard-to-get.
January
“Wow, you’re cranky today.” Belle put the phone between her ear and shoulder and scratched blissfully at her arm. The cast had finally come off and she could reach that damn spot that had been bothering her for eight long weeks.
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, I dunno. The fact that you growled at me, maybe?”
“Oh. That.”
“Simon is mated, Rick. He’s also my Beta. I have to talk to him sometimes.”
“You may have to talk to him, but I don’t have to like it.”
“Really? Huh.” His chuckle was music to her ears. Her gasp of pain as she shifted in her chair, apparently, was not music to his ears. “Don’t growl at me, there’s nothing I can do about it. Besides, you’re the one who agreed to go back north until the doctor releases me for Lunatic duty.”
“Belle.”
She sighed as the pain subsided. It was so tempting to reach for the morphine when the pain got this bad, but she wouldn’t. Jamie was right; she’d become too dependent on it. They’d mutually decided she should go on Ibuprofen instead, counting on her Puma metabolism to get the drug out of her system as quickly as possible.
The night she went off the morphine she’d chosen to text Rick first, not wanting him to hear the withdrawals she was going through. She kept it short, merely telling him she was having a bad day and she’d speak to him the next night. He’d responded, but he hadn’t sounded happy. The next night her phone rang before the physical therapist was even done seeing her. That had been two weeks ago.
“I’m fine, Rick. The cast on my arm came off today.”
“Good!”
“Yeah, I can finally scratch.”
“And we all know how much cats like to scratch?”
“Very funny, Fido. Har har. Peed on any hydrants lately?”
“In this weather? Are you nuts? I’d be glued to the damn thing until the spring thaw.”
She laughed out loud, the first one in over a week.
“Now that is the sweetest sound.”
That rough, rich voice slid through her, speeding up her heart rate. And from the look of her no-longer-red nail polish her eyes had turned gold. There go my panties, getting all wet again. How does the man do that when I’m ready to rip my leg off from the pain?
She heard the front door to her small apartment open. Turning, she saw Sarah come in, a smile on her wind-kissed cheeks. “Sarah’s here. Gotta run.”
“Pizza and poker night?”
“Yup. I’ll tell Adrian and Simon you said hi.”
He was still grumbling when she hung up.
Chapter One
February
“You’re coming home. Three Wolves will be there in the morning to pack your belongings. Your landlady has been informed that your lease will not be renewed, and your medical records have been forwarded to the Pack doctor. Ben and I will pick you up at the end of the week.”
Belle pulled the receiver away from her ear and stared at it. Then she banged it as hard as she could four or five times against the bottom of her stainless steel frying pan.
“Damn it, woman, don’t do that!”
She put the handset back to her ear. “I’m sorry. Did you want to ask me a question?”
He growled. Her Wolf was grumpy tonight. “I need you home.”
She sniffed, secretly pleased he’d said that, but not willing to admit it. “I am home.”
He inhaled noisily. “Belle.”
“My name is Belinda.” She waited for the explosion, sure it was coming.
“Don’t meet the Wolves with a gun, Belle. They have orders to take it from you.”
Oh, poo. There go my shopping plans for tomorrow. “I wo
uld never do that, Rick.”
She loved it when his teeth ground together. He did it the most when she pulled out her “airhead” routine. His long-suffering sigh was music to her ears. “Come home to me, Belle.”
Damn. That sexy growl he got when he called her Belle made her panties wet. The big dope. Just for that she decided she’d played enough. “I have a few more things to take care of before I head into Winter Wonderland.” She picked up the orange and started slicing it, holding her phone between her shoulder and her ear. For instance, I need to get a Bluetooth or something. Money had been awfully tight since she’d been fired from Noah’s, and it was about to get tighter. Her medical bills were piling up. Unless Richard was independently wealthy, she’d need to find a job ASAP.
She heard the rustling of sheets. She could just picture that big body of his leaning against a wooden headboard, the cotton pooled around his groin, his chest naked and lightly furred, just like she liked her men.
Make that man. Simon had been her only, until his mating with Becky. Belle was over it, but the first month had been rough, dealing with her broken heart, a broken hip, a broken arm, and a new, unclaimed mate. Thank God she and Becky had overcome their differences. She now counted Simon and Becky among her few friends.
“What sort of things, my Luna?”
He used the term Luna the way other men used “sweetheart” or “honey”, growling it in that sexy as hell voice of his. Goose bumps shivered up and down her arms. “Just…things.” She laughed at his low growl. “Girl things, like shopping and haircuts.”
“Go get pampered then, Belle.” She almost sighed dreamily over the rough timber of his voice. Of course, he had to go and ruin it. “Just remember: no one pets you but me.”
Steel Beauty: Halle Pumas, Book 4 Page 1